A scandal has arisen between a dealer and Maserati North America, after the former reported he was asked to fake the sales reports but refused. And don’t think it was just an extra 2-3 percent, as the accusing side says it was asked to supply numbers that could have ended up several times higher!
Automotive News reports that Recovery Racing, the company which owns several Maserati showrooms in New York, New Jersey and Florida field a complaint on August 28. It stated that Maserati demanded they mark test drive / demonstrator vehicles as sales and the dealers that refused to do so apparently got shunned – they received lower incentives than they deserved for the sales they did post.
The complaint said “dealers were informed that they would receive full higher or additional incentives on each Ghibli when punched as a demonstrator vehicle and then when the vehicle was later sold to a retail customer. The Maserati dealers that complied with the fraudulent scheme obtained and operated at a substantial economic advantage over the Maserati dealers that did not.”
The source report adds that through this artificial sales boosting scheme, “one Maserati dealer jumped to No. 1 in the brand’s sales rankings with 102 sales in one month and 155 sales in another. Many of those reported vehicles were not retail sales, but vehicles punched into demonstrator status.”
Maserati was asked for clarification but it reportedly replied that no comments can be made on pending litigation.
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